Salut d'Amour
by dorian dark
Summary: COMPLETE A short exploration of Remus' thoughts and feelings upon meeting NT...and how she drives him to reconsider past loves and losses. Reviews gratefully received :D
1. Chapter 1

AN: this is my first foray into fanfiction…and as my subject I choose the teacher that, like JKR, I wish I had. I have to confess, it's more a stream of consciousness than an actual _story_, however I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. And of course, I will update if and when I feel any love from cough reviewers cough. I guess this is primarily concerned with the development between Tonks and Lupin at the beginning of OotP, and possibly continuing…but it hints at affairs and unrequited loves in Remus' past…because we all know there's more to him than meets the eye :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just an overactive imagination. I am cruelly manipulating JKR's characters for my own pleasure and nefarious purposes. Please forgive me.

1

I am late.

How unusual. I am more accustomed to having everything _just so_, with no stray ends to get in the way and trip me up. But the fact remains, I am late.

And splashing through oil-filled puddles, feeling the bloody English rain slash across my face and soak my trousers. The garish light from passing Muggle shops casts lurid shapes across me, but I am in a hurry.

Until there it is, a formidable building even when crowded by fast-food restaurants and sex shops. Looking at it, I still feel a squirm of suspicion and doubt…a house so full of Dark magic.

Smiling at my own paranoia, I enter the silent, cavernous hall of number 12, Grimmauld Place and shake the excess moisture from my clothes and from my hair. In a mirror over an umbrella stand, with spots of mildew clouding it, I catch my pallid reflection. Funny, really. How we have all aged…Sirius, with his black hair no longer shining and his eyes somewhat hollow. Wormtail, with a traitor's glint in his rheumy eyes and lines of worry streaking his flabby face. Good old Moony, looking as exhausted as ever, too poor to afford a decent haircut, or a new jumper. And Prongs…Prongs will age no longer. But I cannot dwell on such tragedies now. As I said, I am late.

My footsteps are swallowed up by the house; its huge emptiness and the smell of evil that drives Sirius mad. But the kitchen – the kitchen is more homely, with various drying spices hanging from sturdy rafters and copper pots sparkling warmly on high shelves. A girl is leaning against the stove as I enter, with her fingers wrapped around a steaming mug bearing the legend _always in the shit – just the depth varies_. Ah, Sirius. Just the sight of his mug reminds me how much I miss him.

The girl is looking at me slightly oddly, and I realise I must have stared at her a moment too long. She has blue hair in untidy pigtails and a long, thin face. But she does not stay still for very long. Her eyes are darting around, and I feel them take in my worn, weary body, and somehow I feel I want to apologise for looking as I do.

'You must be Remus,' she says joyfully, putting the mug down carelessly on the side. She stretches out one elfin hand and grins. 'Tonks.' Then, as an afterthought, 'I came in here to make some tea for the others. Snape's doing my nut.'

I could stay here forever, in the yellow warmth of the kitchen with a girl barely out of school, bitching about Severus, drinking tea and forgetting that my rent is four months overdue. But no. I am Lupin, of course. Steady, reliable, _punctual_ and…boring. And besides, I cannot let Dumbledore down.

'Hello,' my voice is hoarse and low, and I cough slightly, nervously. Her skin radiates heat as I brush it with my own hand. 'Please excuse me, I should join the others.'

The meeting room is hazy with nefarious tobacco and whatever substance Mundungus is currently smoking, and I make out the shapes of several bottles and goblets on the long table. Severus is talking, in that quiet, commanding way he has. I slide into an empty, high-backed chair and grin at Sirius, who is amusing himself by pulling grotesque faces. He grins back. As Severus ends, glaring beadily at me through the smoke, I apologise quietly for my lateness. They need not know that I was staring for two hours into a dying fire, seeing the faces of absent friends in the flames. I am becoming sentimental in my old age.

Old. Yes, I am old – my appearance points to it, my heart feels it. I feel as though I have come to this place with some aim of living out the rest of my days. I am come here to die, peacefully, surrounded by those I know. And after all, after days at Hogwarts, feeling I would conquer the world, in truth I am fizzling away, receding gracefully, decaying. And I would not care, were it not for a pair of smiling, darting eyes that only minutes ago made me feel as though I had come home.

The meeting is concluded, the goblets are drained, and number12 is empty again. I am left alone with my best friend, and the girl – Tonks – is gone. I have, once again, as ever, no opportunity to astound her with my disarming smile and sparkling wit. I can almost hear Prongs in my head, laughing at my ironic tone, and I feel his friendly punch on the arm. However, being the reliable and stoic type, I do not mope – no doubt I will see her again. And she is of no interest, really. There was just something about the way she turned her head – just a small reminder.

So, I am left once more in the great hall, with Sirius, ready to go, ready to leave him alone again, and I know he hates it. He flourishes on people, our Padfoot. It can't be much fun for him with only a psychotic house-elf and a threadbare Hippogriff for company.

He catches me in a fierce, mad embrace, saying (and it sounds almost as though his voice is cracked with tears – but I must be hearing things) 'I've missed you, Moony.'

It has only been a month since he arrived on my doorstep, a hulking dog with shredded paws and filthy coat, and announced the return of Voldemort. Ah, yes, I manage to step around Him, with talk of friends, and smoking and girls _who are too young for a fucked-up loser like me_. But He is the reason I am here, united with people I barely know, those who failed alongside me last time, and those I hate. Voldemort. I try, often I nearly convince myself, that he is the reason for the state of my life. Perhaps he is. Perhaps, in the larger scheme of things, he can be traced as the root, the _crux_ of every wound in this sorry world.

But it must be me, too.

It must be my obsession with the musty smell of books, my stupid reticence, my adoration of those more beautiful and more powerful than I (what am I, a second Peter?) that curses me too.

And I am clutched in Sirius' arms, thinking of failure, and it is – it is like so many other times, feeling safe, feeling protected and loved – but they are past times, and too many deaths have plighted us since then, and the embrace is a little too long.

I leave the house, into the lashing rain again, and I cannot meet his eyes. My only friend. The last Marauders are we. And I am failing even him, because of Voldemort, because of James and Lily, and because of white, long fingers wrapped around a mug.

AN: I hope this wasn't too angsty and pretentious for y'all…I am usually quite a happy person, really! Any reviews, good or bad, would be gratefully received. Thank you all, have yourselves a nice day now…


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Yo, dudes, I must say it cheered me up no end to read some reviews…I am not worthy…so, on with the show!

2

And the days pass, sometimes long, hot August days, and sometimes (often) blackened skies unreal for the season, but somehow right for the stormclouds that plague us. I see hideous shadows in rolling clouds, a fuzzy Dark Mark bathed in a bloody sunset, silhouettes of violent death. All through the smudged windows of number 12.

I live there now. I left the rotting bedsit where I lived two weeks ago, with a red eviction notice in my trembling hand, and threw out my wand – mounted that purple bus, and arrived, weakly, at Sirius' door. For after all, I always end up by his side. Twelve years in the wilderness were what made me into what I am now, a papery, burnt-out wretch. A different future from the promise of my youth, with my glistening Prefect badge and quiet ambition.

So, yes, I end up with Sirius once again – Marauders once again, trapped in a house tinged with darkness and feeling so keenly – though the words are left unsaid – those who have…gone away.

And so; this is my home. These black corridors, with screaming portraits and crumbling gargoyles, are my place of residence. They barely beat the freezing cold room I have left, where I found maggots nesting in an armchair. Nor the subway before that, huddled in a coat I still possess with my fingernails blue and my eyes glazed. Nor the flat before the war, where I faced my solitude each night with slow music and firewhisky. Hogwarts is my home. But now, now I am forced to a place where the evil I fight is in the structure of the building itself. And Sirius is there, a reminder of what we both have lost, and Tonks is often there too, like a ghost that I could not capture even when she was alive, and cannot capture now she is dead.

But it does not do to dwell too long on faded pictures. And long faded kisses. A kiss.

There is a room in the house, along the corridor from my room, panelled with wood bleached almost white by the sun. It protrudes from the house – a separate wing – and has windows on three sides. Huge, tall windows made of tiny diamonds (and a voice in my head says – like her smile, before she went ago, in life and death) and the lead between them is too old to keep them perfectly flat. They buckle this way and that, and reflect light in different directions. Like a fly's eye, I suppose.

Sometimes, when I look through the panes, in one direction I see rolling, unkempt gardens littered with statues of dead Blacks (oh, even in stone they seem something…unholy). And in the other I see the smoggy capitalism of London, pressing gaudily, brashly against the invisible glass. It all depends, as ever, on your point of view.

It is a library, evidently, although I never see Sirius there, reading. Always loyal to himself, is Padfoot. The spines of old, evil books are coated in dust that dulls the gold embossing and the expensive sheen of dragon leather. The floor, perhaps once upon a time past generations of Blacks could see their own faces. But no longer.

Now the thin floorboards stretch along the massive length of the library, and the light from the warped windows floods in haphazard beams across the room, catching the floating, swimming dust motes.

And right at the end, also smothered in a grey cloak of dust, is a piano.

I haven't played for over twenty years. I cannot remember whether it ever gave me pleasure. Certainly I did not miss it when I left Hogwarts and could not afford an instrument of my own.

There I go again, lying to myself.

It gave me great pleasure, once. I was too happy, it was a moment too perfect, and though my fingers were trembling I felt they would fly across the keyboard forever.

'Play some more. I think I shall die with the beauty of it. Remus, Remus. So beautiful.'

And it killed me to abandon any hopes of having even my own, battered upright, sounding a little flat, a little metallic. Anything would have done. Seeing this old instrument, standing in weak sunlight, makes my stupid eyes well up.

The keys, too, are mangled, the ivory coating is peeling away, the black notes are scratched and wonky. Though, I cannot help but play. And I have held her memory this long. And I hold the memory of a piece played in the gloom of a classroom years ago, and it flows out of me, instead of the tears that have forsaken me for fourteen years.

There are padded footsteps, like a cat, edging through the dust, out of the shadows at the other end of the library.

My fingers freeze. I will not play, I cannot be forced to perform merrily for her. It is too soon, although I can sense (damning myself, too) that I am being drawn silently to her. But this is only a ghost of a feeling at the edge of my being – and I must wrestle a little longer with my tired soul before I break my silence. She has not yet won my trust…the right to crack open my battered crow's chest and peer at my raw heart.

Good old Remus, he has so much knowledge, such great wisdom and kindness to impart.

No, no, no. My greatest gift is hidden from all but one, who took it to her grave. It transcends the exhibitions and flourishes of wand waving and bangs and puffs. But Merlin, it is magical. Do you condemn me for wanting to keep it hidden? If only for a while longer, as I search for some control, some way out of this trap I laid for myself when I walked into the kitchen.

AN: GOD knows why I decided to make Remus a classically trained pianist…I hope it doesn't oppose your idea of our dear Professor too much, it's not TOO out of character is it? I mean, he's all studious and tender etc…ah well, I hope you enjoyed etc. this isn't leading to a great long fic, I hope you realise; there is one part remaining in which it will become almost entirely clear (if you hadn't guessed already) who Remus has been hanging onto all these years (and I'm telling you, it's really not that original). Like I said…it's just a stream of consciousness, not designed as an epic chronicling their blossoming relationship, yaddayaddayadda. It's been done too many times for me to write without nicking other people's ideas.

Oh, and by the way, the piece Remus plays before Tonks interrupts him is 'Salut d'Amour' by Elgar. Which if you haven't heard, go do so now…it may not be Blink 182 but it made ME cry. Until next time, all my love xxx


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Once again, heartfelt thanks to ALL of my reviewers. You make me feel like…a double bill of ER with a box of Miniature Heroes (no, not bloated and sick…). So here is the very last bit of this particular fic, which I confess was an experiment, introducing my own brand of Remus into the world before actually toying around with inconveniences like _storylines_. Argh! With this in mind, he WILL return…probably younger, and maybe with a tad less angst (because, let's face it, noone could survive as long as he has with all those morbid thoughts plaguing him…). Alors, on commence!

Disclaimer: Oh ye, I forgot this last chapter. Needless to say, I am simply a lazy rogue who can't be bothered to invent some characters of my own…so I…borrowed…some of JKR's. They will never belong to me. Poor me, get out the violins…

3

They think, they all think I am in control.

And, those who have barely known me…they would be right. They have never seen beyond the man who sits quietly by the fire and offers a steady, avuncular sympathy, positively radiating righteousness and selfless morality.

Even those who have shared my entire life – for the most part they see, too, the bookish, reticent Remus focussed on dusty academia and not on foolish concepts like emotion.

But there are two who have seen me lose my grip on my bland façade…

_- please God, I can't fight this any more…what I wouldn't give…such a selfish monster to sacrifice his friendship, but I don't care, I love you…my God how I love you, don't trample on my dreams, in the name of sanity, don't cast me aside. It hurts every time…but from you – can't you see? You have the power to kill me, to finish me entirely - _

_- you see…you can't know how much you mean to me…this feels so weird, so wrong to be telling you all this…man, just to be accepted, it's like you've given me the world. Merlin, it took me years to realise what you mean to me…you won't go away will you? Be with me always…look at you, so beautiful…what are you doing with me? just don't betray me…we can't go back now, can we? But I'd rather be in your arms for one night than pretend I look on you only as a friend for the rest of my life – my love…mine - _

And I know, deep inside me, that I am always unravelling a little at the edges, that there have been countless times when my mask has slipped, when I have reverted to something feral…something inhuman. At the very beginning, at the dawn, maybe there was just the wolf – I am a wolf who turns into a man when the moon is less than full.

There have been times when my behaviour has been repulsive, sordid, shameful. Times when I have scrabbled for shelter…lowered myself so greatly that my heart has shrivelled. Seeking comfort not in the arms of a faceless woman, but in the roof she provides for me. I have too many reasons to despise myself and the shadow that I cast.

I am scrabbling now, too, to save myself from attachments that will curse those around me. I cannot be responsible for dooming – defiling – one so pure and gentle.

Ha, listen to my selfish ranting…I talk as though I might have a chance, as though my flesh is not withered and drained, as though I possess sparkling wit and sparkling gold to entice a young heart. No, I will delude myself no longer.

But she talks to me so often, so softly, imparting secrets and confessions that I never request. It is as though she is pouring herself into me, because after all, I am no colander, the fragments that she makes me witness are safe forever inside good, trustworthy Remus.

I confess, although she unnerves me when she tells me about past loves and fears that noone else may see, I enjoy leaning close to her, seeing the glint in her eyes. And one day, she makes a choice that churns me up inside.

Again, I enter the kitchen, and it is her alone, by the sink, weak September sunshine catching in the strands of her hair, lifted by static and the rush of movement as she turns from washing a cup and smiles at me.

My heart constricts.

I want to go to her, despite the Muggle yellow gloves that engulf her tiny hands, covered in iridescent, sliding suds, and embrace her…inhale her red, glossy hair. Stare into those green, green eyes. It is so hard, living in the past.

Sometimes, it resurrects itself in the most unexpected of places.

I must look odd, half-hidden by the heavy door, raking her over and over with my eyes. I hear Sirius feeding a cawing Buckbeak, and the present, where she is dead and I am nothing but an old fool teaching the next generation, scrapes at the back of my mind. She did not choose that colour this morning deliberately.

Noone knows.

Noone.

It is inconceivable, horrible, to think that she has read my dying eyes so closely that she sees the shame and guilt smothered by layers of dull memories. It was one kiss.

And a lifetime unfulfilled. Unrequited. But it is buried. How could I survive else?

In my reminiscences, as they stab and scratch at the back of my eyes, she is suddenly before me, her gloved hands pressing to my face, her little body humming with youth and vitality. It is too easy for me to muffle the mantra throbbing in my skull, _she is Tonks, she is Tonks, she will never be her, she is not what you truly want_, and kiss her.

I was right. It is not the same. Though, how I can remember, I cannot say. I have carried the memory, the facts of one long ago kiss, but who can truly remember sensations through decades, when other sensations may come along and cloud them?

All the same, I can see her hair fade to pink.

Maybe I love her for the images she causes to flicker into my mind…images I thought had run away laughing, leaving only the sweet taste of their memory to linger cruelly. And maybe I love her because she is Tonks, something young and new.

And not a collection of photographs and tinkling piano keys in the dusty rooms of my remembrance.

I am come here to die, and she is life. So I will not be plummeting gladly to the same fate as the girl who I see walking back towards me in dreams.

Not today, anyhow.

AN: So, there we go…A brief introduction to the doom 'n' gloom that is dorian dark's Remus Lupin. I like the idea that a) he was in love with Lily (what's with that scene in the 3rd movie where Lupin is going on about Harry's mother to him? My suspicions were WELL AND TRULY aroused…) and b) that he and Sirius were VERY GOOD friends. Or maybe it's just me. And not in a sordid, secretive way, really…a pure love, y'know? 'Cause as much as he beats himself up, Remus is really quite a good lad, no? I hope this didn't disappoint…thank you for taking the time to read :) until next time… DD xxx


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